Debt is a central concept of social and cultural life and a defining characteristic ofcontemporary experience. Itsprevalence raises the question of what happens when debt itself undergoes inflation: doesdebt lose itsmeaning when so much is owed? This conference seeks to critically engage with the ubiquityof debt in a varietyof disciplines and to explore the transactional basis of social and cultural exchange. Aconspicuous presencefrom Plato's Republic to the current state of international relations, debt is equally salient inliterary,psychoanalytic, philosophical, and political discourses. Debt is, to invoke Roland Barthes, afree-floatingsignifier appropriate for the age of the floating exchange rate, a topos of judgment that istranslatable into anydiscursive field. This conference will map the costs of foreclosure and the value offorgiveness in an effort to think relationships beyond rhetorical recourse to the "balance ofpayments."

Proposals may address, but are not restricted to, the following topics:- Influence, tradition, and intellectual debt- Debt and civic participation- Translation and debt- Debt and the gift- Responsibility, restitution, reconciliation, revenge- Debt as a category of relation to an other- Debt and the national imaginary- Remembering, memorializing, and monumentalizing debt- Debt and inheritance- Exchange, interest, and accumulation- Debt and class- The ethics of the loan- Debt and historiography- Queering debt- Licensing, permission, and intellectual property- Debt and the State/the State of the Debt- Monitoring debt: justice and forgiveness- Debt and the (academic) institution

Papers should be 20 minutes long. Please send abstracts (300 words) with full name, papertitle, and institution(use "Tracing Debt" in the subject line) to tracingdebt_at_gmail.com by December 31, 2006.Selected participants will be notified by February 2, 2007.